Oracle releases new version of Oracle GlassFish Server

Responding to increasing developer demand of millions of annual downloads; Oracle has announced Oracle GlassFish Server 3.1 and an update to the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) 6 software development kit (SDK) distribution through the latest release of the Java EE 6 Reference Implementation.

Oracle GlassFish Server is based on its open source counterpart, GlassFish Server Open Source Edition, it is strengthened by a vibrant developer community and allows customers more control over their product deployments through the publicly available roadmap of product features and priorities. This new release delivers on the roadmap laid out at JavaOne 2010 with a focus on new high availability features specifically in the areas of load balancing, failover, state management and centralised administration.

As the reference implementation for Java EE, Oracle GlassFish Server is also the proving grounds for the upcoming Java EE 7. Oracle has already begun working within the Java Community Process (JCP) to submit Java Specification Requests (JSRs) as part of Java EE 7, including JPA 2.1 and JAX-RS 2.0.

Oracle GlassFish Server complements Oracle WebLogic Server 11g, which is designed to run the broader portfolio of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g and large-scale enterprise applications.

Key features of Oracle GlassFish Server 3.1

nDeveloper innovation and productivity improvements, which enable more rapid development and help to decrease costs and time-to-market.

nNew features for OSGi Enterprise including support for JDBC and HTTP Service, as well as Apache Felix 3.0.8

nImproved developer productivity with a 29% faster startup/deploy/re-deploy cycle than GlassFish 3.0.1

nSophisticated tools integration with NetBeans and Eclipse

nIncreased compatibility with Oracle WebLogic Server 11g, improving application portability.

nHigh availability features allowing customers to experience far greater application uptime and faster application responsiveness.

nFailover and load balancing capabilities, as well as built in HTTP and Enterprise Java Bean (EJB) state management

n34% improvement in high availability performance over GlassFish 2.1.1

nIntegration with SSH for remote node management

nHigh availability messaging with GlassFish MQ

nCentralised administration enables customers to monitor and manage clusters and standalone servers securely from a single web-based console, helping to decrease operational costs and respond to changes quickly.

nImproves manageability with support of up to 100 instances in a domain

nAllows centralised policy driven management of GlassFish Metro Web Services from Oracle Web Services Manager

nHighly productive management console via Oracle GlassFish Server Control to provide a more seamless end-user experience.

nProvides up to a 300% performance improvement out-of-the-box

nBuilt in performance tuning and load balancer configuration tooling

nSupports Oracle Coherence for in-memory session state replication

nSeamless application single sign-on through integration with Oracle Access Manager

“Oracle GlassFish Server 3.1 delivers a flexible, lightweight and extensible Java EE 6 platform,” said Steven G. Harris, Senior Vice President, Application Server Development, Oracle.

“With this release, Oracle is delivering on the roadmap we announced at JavaOne 2010 and responding to the increasing demand for Oracle GlassFish Server by adding new features for enterprise management and high-availability to help customers reduce application and deployment complexity and increase developer productivity and system uptime.”